{"entity":{"id":"michael-atkins","kind":"person","name":"Michael B. Atkins","aka":[],"tldr":"Washington oncologist who led DREAMseq, the trial that showed people with BRAF-mutant melanoma live longer if immunotherapy is given before targeted therapy rather than after.","summary":"Michael Atkins is deputy director of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and a long-time investigator of immunotherapy in melanoma and kidney cancer, from high-dose interleukin-2 to checkpoint inhibitors. He was first author of the 2023 Journal of Clinical Oncology report of the DREAMseq trial, which found that starting with nivolumab plus ipilimumab and switching to dabrafenib plus trametinib on progression gave better two-year overall survival than the reverse sequence in BRAF V600-mutant metastatic melanoma.","asOf":"2026-09-18","links":[],"tags":["melanoma","immunotherapy","trialist"],"related":[],"cancers":["advanced-melanoma","braf-v600-melanoma","melanoma","rcc"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["georgetown-lombardi"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-dreamseq-jco-2023"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Deputy Director, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center","institutionId":"georgetown-lombardi","specialisms":["Melanoma","Kidney cancer","Immunotherapy sequencing"],"profiles":[{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Atkins%5BAuthor%5D"}],"papers":[],"orcid":"0000-0003-3901-9924"},"route":"/people/michael-atkins/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"advanced-melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Advanced melanoma (unresectable stage III and stage IV)","route":"/cancers/advanced-melanoma/"},{"id":"braf-v600-melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"BRAF V600-mutant melanoma","route":"/cancers/braf-v600-melanoma/"},{"id":"melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Melanoma","route":"/cancers/melanoma/"},{"id":"rcc","kind":"cancer","name":"Renal cell carcinoma","route":"/cancers/rcc/"}],"institution":[{"id":"georgetown-lombardi","kind":"institution","name":"Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center","route":"/institutions/georgetown-lombardi/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-dreamseq-jco-2023","kind":"paper","name":"DREAMseq (ECOG-ACRIN EA6134): sequencing dabrafenib-trametinib and nivolumab-ipilimumab in BRAF-mutant metastatic melanoma","route":"/key-papers/paper-dreamseq-jco-2023/"}]}}